January 2011

I had my bone scan taken 2 weeks ago to determine if I am at risk for osteoporosis. I am still within the low risk grade for osteoporosis. I may attribute this to several risk factors that are not present and my health practices that prevent osteoporosis.

First, I don’t smoke and drink alcoholic beverages, I am still in my premenopausal years, I drink only 1 or 2 cups of coffee a day. I don’t have a family history of osteoporosis, I am active meaning I walk and walk, I still take milk and likes milk products.

I want healthy bones, and one way of doing that is to take food rich in Calcium and Vitamin D. Milk is an excellent source of calcium, Anlene Gold offers the right amount of quality calcium.

A glass of Anlene contains 500 mg of calcium, while Anlene Gold has 600 mg per glass. Drink two glasses a day and you not only meet your daily calcium needs, you also reduce bone breakdown within four weeks. It comes in Chocolate and Vanilla flavor.

Senator Pia Cayetano takes up the role as Anlene’s Ambassador. Her goal to promote women’s health and that includes rallying the Filipina towards action to prevent osteoporosis. She believes that promoting bone health awareness is the key to osteoporosis prevention.

In the Philippines, studies reveal that 1 out of 2 woman is at risk for osteoporosis. “Deadly sa Kababaihan”, indeed. With prevention NO stooped back, NO loss of height, and NO easy breakage of bones in the back, hips, wrists, and ankles.

In recent years , the Philippine Health Care system had three major Health Reforms , Health for All ((90’s), Health Sector Reform Agenda ( 1999-2004) and FourMula One for Health (2005-2010).

The Aquino government has established a comprehensive reform in health to address the significant challenges facing the Philippine health system. There are shortcomings in health financing, which resulted in out of pocket expenses as the primary source of health expenditure. Out of pocket expenditure has been the rate limiting step of many of our countrymen in availing health services. Due to scarcity of financial resources and fragmentation of health services as a consequence of devolution, our health facilities have suffered neglect

President Aquino’s health agenda is Universal Health Care for All Filipinos for 2010 -2016. Universal Health Care for All Filipinos of the Aquino administration aims to achieve better health outcomes, responsive health system and equitable health financing Health.

The Priority Health Policy Directions of the Aquino Administration are:

A roadmap towards universal health care through a refocused PhilHealth; through the expansion of the National health Insurance Program coverage to achieve financial risk protection.

Particular attention to the construction, rehabilitation, and support of health facilities:

It’s been 5 years of teaching nursing students in 2 universities. I have almost taught most of the nursing subjects, from the basic like Anatomy and Physiology, Pharmacology, Microbiology to the major subjects of Medical Surgical and Maternal and Child Health Nursing.

My students were from the age range 17 to 50 years old, for the reason that some of them took up nursing as a second bachelor’s degree. Their personalities, learning styles and attitude were varied. My jokes were not funny to some but others can relate as I tell stories about life, mostly from my own experiences.

The day to day rigors of teaching 8 hours a day was fun, tiring and rewarding. My weekends were spent doing handouts, outlines, research and examinations. I am not a techie inside the classroom. I still use the teaching strategies of reading, writing and reciting. No LCDs , no PowerPoint presentations, nor overhead projectors, just handouts on the topic for discussion which were given days ahead of the discussion. I did a survey on their preferred teaching strategies and handouts were first followed by lecture discussion as their choice.

A new year to look forward to new challenges in every undertaking that I will do. I don’t have any New Year resolution this year; I just hope the world around me will be a better place to live.

In life, we want to possess a lot of things but God can only give as much of what we need. It is always never complete; we will always yearn for something else. Life is not all happiness, there are always trials and tribulations that we can’t get away with. As what I have learned from experience, these trials will be a key to a happiness or fulfillment later on.

I always believe in “When A Door Closes, A Window opens, or when one path in life is blocked, another path is opened up.”

Hoping for the best to happen this year for my children, my career and me.